 So one of the major things teen angels and tween angels are working on right now is the Megan pledge Many of you have heard the story of Megan Meyer who committed suicide after being cyberbullied on my space Our chapter learned about this story and then decided we wanted to do something to spread Megan's story and to get other kids To educate themselves about cyberbullying and to educate their friends so we created a Megan pledge which gives kids tips on how to avoid cyberbullying and We have it has been signed 450,000 times this year Teen angels also plays a prominent role in advising the industry so People like companies like Procter and Gamble and my space and Facebook come to us to get advice about how to make their their internet Like my space and and Facebook their social networking how to make their site safer Procter and Gamble I'm one of the consultants for their site called being girl and we give Safety tips to the girls who go on there Kids used to do bake sales. I signed a $45,000 consulting gig with the girls to help moderate Procter and Gamble site to fund their Megan pledge program Another major activity for us is speaking we speak to Not not only in groups like this, but also to students our age and younger and their parents one of our first one of our first speaking jobs was to a school an entire middle school and We tell them about cyberbullying and that's where we begin a lot of our research because we do take surveys during the course of ours of our Presentations and that gives us basis for what kids will respond to when we actually do paper surveys and collect the numbers I'd also like to add that we found through our research and the with the fact that we're teens So teens will tell us the truth more often than they'll tell Adults or when their parents are around and one of the things we found is that the issue isn't so much Sexual predators, but the issue is more it's coming from them. It's cyberbullying And do you want to explain with it? so here are some of the stats we found that were very interesting 70% of the kids we surveyed had given out their passwords to their friends and So when you analyze the risks online, you have to take into account that they're not always It's not always adults putting children at risk a lot of the times it's kids putting their friends and their classmates at risk Because they know about these kids and they have information that can do a lot of damage if it's used improperly So we also found that most underage users so under 13 go to Zanga or MySpace or some other Network that can be customized before switching over to Facebook about eighth or ninth grade Almost 46% are sharing. I am or other contact info on their profiles 85% felt that Facebook is safer than MySpace or than other networks 54% of people said they have people on their friends list. They don't actually know 65% said they don't really understand privacy settings 40% put their cell phone numbers either on their profiles or away messages linked to their profiles Only 15% said they knew how to shut down a profile only 5% said they would bother reporting anything to the social networking site 45% said they didn't think it would make a difference if they did and only 2% knew how to Teen angels is part of getting their wings to qualify it takes about a year or two to finish their training program They have to do independent research and the research projects have to have at least 500 kids in them and we oversee them in an academic manner Oh, thank you so much These are some of the things that people put on their profiles on their mostly Facebook is what we found I'll just run down the list Full name address telephone number email cell phone number workplace schedule at school weekend plans IM screen name or aim friends info Location school picks of themselves and pictures of their friends and links to other profiles We were surprised at how many put things like weekend plans because it made it so easy for someone to find them Wherever they are even if they didn't have their location or their home address They could say I'm going to be such in such a place putting themselves at risk without really realizing it also a lot of people had other profiles linked to say they had a Facebook and a MySpace and That creates a bit of a problem if you have a MySpace with one set of friends That you want to see one thing and then a Facebook with another because then you can get to both just by having the link to one And it just opens up How many people can contact you on each one? Just to add something this I did specific research on boys and girls social networking And one of the things we found about the information was that boys were a lot more likely to put more more of this kind of information on Their sites So their behavior is a little bit more risky and the other thing we found was that While most teens know I shouldn't put my address on I shouldn't you know give explicit ways For people to find me they still put enough information for someone to be able to locate them and Find out what school they go to and what teens they're on and so someone would still be able to find them A lot of teens are taking this into their own hands There was a group of students in Maryland who as a student council pulled together an undercover operation Where they went to Facebook and they found out what information was being shared and how many were doing it and gave the kids different color bracelets and a large assembly to out them and then they went to a place of work where one of the girls It's the students in the high school had indicated what her work hours were and it was California pizza kitchen So they showed up with a video camera and sat in the car and stalked her Somebody had noticed that somebody was stalking her. They actually followed her home And she didn't tell the police at that point But we had her do a narration over the video of her Freaked while people were following her home in the next morning when she told the school resource officer what had happened They knew about the student council project and said this was being used to show how easily someone could have found you And then she became involved in the project and narrated over it's very very interesting And I'm happy to share it with you Katie Kirk actually had run something on it so I Did our research project last year and I surveyed 550 boys and girls through from 9th through 12th grade And it was a comparison study about the social networking habits of boys and girls and one of the interesting things that we found was that there a lot of Boys and girls are friends with people. They haven't met online more than half and also that Although they wouldn't meet with them in person most of them had spoken to them through I am and and The cell phones and cell phones my research project analyzed how friends cyber bully friends And I picked that topic because friends are the people that know the most about you and they have the most Information about you and they can do the most damage with that information And what I found was that 70% of kids had shared their passwords with their friends And also that kids that had reported being heard online had said it was by their friends people They knew and people they had shared personal information with beforehand your friends have your secrets and your passwords and the reason some surveys contradict each other is that kids don't always Tell the real truth when they're giving answers to surveys for example If parents are watching or if parents might find out the answers to these questions kids are more likely to hide the fact They've been cyber bullied because they don't want their computers taken away They don't want their parents to always be worrying about them and they don't want to feel like cry babies They think they can handle it by themselves, and that's why it's important for the Teen Angels to do research because they know that We're not going to out them or anything and we are on the side just like they are and we understand where they're coming from Another reason the surveys don't always reflect the real problem is that when kids are cyber bullied by their friends They often feel the need to protect their friends They don't want people to know they're having friendship problems or that their former best friend is now targeting them online They feel embarrassed by that and less than a quarter of the people that reported being cyber bullied Or less than a quarter of people we surveyed Realized that they're being cyber bullied and actually told someone and but only five percent told their parents But when we broke down what cyber bullying really is many more over 50% of people had actually been cyber bullied They just didn't realize how to define it or what it was. Yeah, and that's part of the problem on the surveys We've seen them and and on our surveys We've pulled about 45,000 middle schools kids in person and about 85% of them have indicated They've been cyber bullied, but you can't say have you been cyber bullied to them That means a death threat or somebody's posted a fake social network about you with sexual pictures or innuendo's They don't realize that it's somebody stealing your password changing things on your profile and locking you out of it And when you start going through those some of them yesterday You want to explain the one yesterday? I mean these kids are very inventive Whenever we do presentations, we always ask the kids What do they think cyber bullying is or how can they be cyber bullied and one person yesterday actually said that? one way of cyber bullying is to take someone's cell phone and Reprogram a number so that their girlfriend or boyfriend's name is now your phone number so that you can text them And they think it's coming from their girlfriend or boyfriend So stealing cell phones off of the table and sending threatening messages pretending to be that kid and putting it back Is now a really new trend We also made a list of about 20 questions that can be used easily guess passwords and Among all the grades the majority of passwords could be guessed So not only are kids giving away their passwords, but they're making them easy enough for all their friends to figure out So one thing we need to work on doing is having kids create passwords that aren't so difficult to remember so that they write Them down because that's dangerous in itself, but that aren't so easy as so that they can be guessed So do you want to explain the 20 questions just a couple examples of what we do with 20 questions? Okay, um some of those are Your year of graduation your favorite color where you want to go to college or where you were born and We we analyzed a lot of different passwords We did surveys and a group of teen angels put together a list of the 20 most common ways To guess a password and that's where the statistic came from and we just finished the training for all of the girl Scouts of the United States and I'll be made public in a few months on cyber safety and they've come up with a concept called designer Passwords taking two words that meet special special sense to you and putting them together So if you like eating twizzlers at movies clueless, which is your favorite movie and if you're at Facebook So clueless FB twizzlers is now your your password something you'll remember customized site by site and won't have to put in the asterix and uppercase and stuff and Reinvent it every day Okay, so What do you what do you want to tell these guys? What do you need them to know? What do you what help do you need? Okay, so obviously The the start of safety comes with the teens themselves So as teen angels we have the opportunity to teach teens and get them to start Being aware of the danger they put themselves in online But we also need help at the industry level and the technology level So we need For example on Facebook when someone friends you maybe a reminder that when you say yes This person is my friend. They'll be able to see Everything that you have on your profile maybe make the terms of service and the safety a little bit more Interesting or informative So that Unlike most teens will look at it press I agree and skim right over it because I mean it's it's boring legal stuff That's how it's presented But maybe if there was a way To make it more interesting more people would read it and more people would know how to keep themselves safer Right and like Stephanie said the biggest problem is that kids don't know how to use the sites properly They don't know how to be safe online. So maybe when you post pictures have a reminder that says Don't post pictures of you wearing your school uniform because people will be able to know where you go to school Don't post pictures of you in your soccer uniform because people know where you are on the weekends or where you go to play soccer Friends without their permission right don't post pictures of your friends without talking to them first and getting their permission So it's things like that. It's the little things that are very easy to overlook, but that can be very dangerous one thing we discussed earlier was confirming of a tagged photo of you a Lot of the time people tagged photos of you and you can't have the option to take it down which which has been a problem in some of the people we've surveyed I think and Having a having a way to get rid of a picture. You don't want online. You don't want out there Or you don't want to distribute distributed to your friends That would be a good start for keeping yourself safe online also It making it less easy to contact people you don't know or What Perry called it do not disturb button on on websites if you don't want to be contacted by someone you can press that button Make it easier for your for yourself to be less reachable Also, we don't think that the issue is so much age Verification that there's a magic age where once you pass it you're gonna be safe online And you're gonna really know what you're doing. It's more of an identity Verification if kids know that the site knows who they are There they're more likely to Want to behave better online Right if kids think that somehow if they do something wrong Facebook or my face will be able to target them and shut down their profile and know that it was them that did it They are much less likely to do something unsafe or to do something that involves cyber bullying. I Know we need to go and you're tight on time a couple things a the kids do consulting on cyber bullying proof technologies So Chris is very good. I know you're great about calling us my space did it in 2005 I think we need to start again Tell us new technologies you want to launch before you do it as early as you give it to us I'll tell you how the kids are gonna break it so you can put those things in use tutorials that are kid oriented Take your terms of service and your privacy policies if you want them to follow your rules You have to do it do it in a way that kids understand it make it fun do animations You serious gaming to teach kids what they need to know Get out there on the Megan pledge. It's not a my space issue and you know We keep saying this kid this happened a mice. It could have happened absolutely anywhere We need to get out there and have the kids own the issue that this is unacceptable And we're gonna stand up for other people so it's not going to happen The stuff's out there these kids work for free Except when Procter and Gamble calls But you know, they're they're experts I have many of them girls and boys all different sizes shapes colors and countries around the world We just set up to in Pakistan It's in a unique program where the kids become the experts and care about these issues now They their new issue is they want to create a teen helpline Where teen angels and specially trained other teens will be able to respond to requests for by young people Anywhere from the sites with a hot button from others where they can come saying I'm being cyber bullied this happened I don't know what to do it'll be modeled off of the kids helpline That's in Canada. That's a phone service. This will be done through I am and text We're gonna need to help making that happen and I think if we can do that the kids have also said they want a helpline for troubled parents I think that means sort of all of us these days Not on I want my kid off of Facebook But my kids have been cyber bullied and I don't know what to do and that would be manned by our volunteers at Wired Safety And the teens depending upon the issue. So this stuff's there talk to them about on the technologies They know what they're doing. They'll break it if you don't do it, right? And if you don't do it, right? They won't come back So you want to keep them as customers you want them to obey the rules you want them to understand this I'm very happy to have you know who they are They are very happy to keep adults out of where they are they are not there to be with the adults They're there to talk to other kids So what you need to do is recognize what they really want what they're willing to do and what they won't put up With thanks very. Thank you so much. I'm here